


and the ships are left to rust

by unveiled



Series: Snippets [16]
Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, F/M, Post Beach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-24
Updated: 2013-02-24
Packaged: 2017-12-03 11:11:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/697632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unveiled/pseuds/unveiled
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The bargain must be made.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and the ships are left to rust

**Author's Note:**

> Set post-canon, sort of a B-side to [what the water gave me](http://archiveofourown.org/works/688294) and its subtextually unhealthy relationships. Originally posted [on Tumblr](http://thoughtsnotunveiled.tumblr.com/post/43822407756/always-a-girl-charles-au-set-post-cuba-sort-of-a) with a photoset.

The grounds of Charlotte’s Westchester estate remained as familiar as they ever were, mapped out over weeks of morning runs in the months before Cuba. There were newer additions: sports facilities to augment the 1920s tennis courts, and a boating deck over the lake. Charred circles marred the lawn. For the most part, though, Charlotte seemed content to refurbish what was already built, and maintain only what was necessary. Perhaps her money was needed elsewhere. 

Erik prised open a window in the west wing — to one of the innumerable sitting rooms, as he recalled. The soles of his boots had just touched the carpeting when the door opened, throwing a long bar of light across the floor. He froze.

Alex stood in the doorway, glowering at him. “The Professor will see you in the breakfast room,” he said through clenched teeth, and stomped off, dressing gown flapping in his wake.

Unnerved and hating the feeling, Erik did what he was bade.

*

Charlotte had let her hair grow out from its girlish bob; unpinned, it tumbled in well-groomed waves against her shoulders. White strands wove in and out of brown — a recent change, Erik assured himself. Something gnarled and heavy lodged in his chest.

This was new, too: the cool welcome with which she beheld him, how she had looked up from her newspaper and seemed neither concerned nor moved.

“Hello, Erik.”

She was expecting him, he thought. Had she found a way past the helmet?

“One of the students saw you skulking in the shrubbery,” she said. Her mouth settled into a grave line. “I wish you had simply rung the doorbell — I wouldn’t have turned you away.”

“It was more prudent to assume otherwise,” he said.

“You assumed wrong.”

He bowed his head slightly, an ironic gesture of the gentleman he never was. “It appears we are strangers again.”

How wrong he was, to think that there would ever be a time when they would not force open the scars they had left in each other, that they did not still have the power to hurt the other. But by now they had spent far more time as apart than they ever had together. He could no longer interpret her gestures, the shifting cast of her lovely face, as easily as he used to. 

The Charlotte he knew affected an artless charm to soften the intellectual power she wielded, among men and lesser minds. Her heart had been a garden for all to lay their heads and rest, while she spun shining dreams for them to believe in. He saw very little of the woman who once begged him to be the better man: this Charlotte wore authority like a mink stole, shrugged on with a lift of that proud chin. 

She nudged her wheelchair away from the table, turning slightly to face him. Her dark grey cardigan and tailored trousers were new pieces in her wardrobe, and clearly designed to endow her with an impression of genteel good taste. Erik frowned, despite himself — Charlotte had always favoured skirts, expensive houndstooth tweed or Irish linen with modest hemlines. Outside of training and the suits McCoy made for them, he had never seen her in trousers.

“I hope you’re here for a reason more important than to stare at my legs,” she said evenly. 

Fine, he thought, if that was the game they were to play. 

*

The sheets were cold against his skin. A murmur of voices drifted from the other side of the bedroom door: Charlotte and one of her students. Her voice was low and comforting, a feeling of peace radiating from her mind like the warmth of the sun. His skin crawled. Erik turned onto his side, briefly considering the helmet on the bedside table, but decided their current détente was worth the risk.

An unusual concentration of metal moved to join Charlotte and the child — the man they called Logan, Erik thought. When the door opened, he could see Logan’s face, suspicious and unhappy, over Charlotte’s shoulder. There were traces of a smile in the curve of her mouth, deepening the lines around her eyes.

Her face closed with the door.

“Moira said she’ll have news for me in the morning,” Charlotte said. She wheeled herself to the dressing room, disappearing from view, and telepathy conveyed her next words: _She thinks Raven will manage to free herself in time — it’s hardly a high-security facility_.

Once upon a time, Erik thought, Charlotte wouldn’t have waited.

“No, I wouldn’t have,” she said, coming to a stop beside their bed. Her nightdress was, at least, familiar — it was her favourite peach negligee, and one he had been equally fond of pulling off her. “But I think I have evidence enough now to trust in her abilities.”

“Stay out of my head.” It was a token protest, though, made without real anger. He lifted the duvet for her to slide under, and watched her settle into place on the other side of the bed. The implacable set of her shoulders did nothing to mitigate the beauty of their graceful curves, and he indulged in a brief fantasy of biting them. 

She stiffened.

“You’re not wearing your ring,” Erik said, and the angry hitch of breath stirred a dark, malicious pleasure in him. “Are you fucking the Wolverine?”

Her teeth gleamed in the shadows. “I expect it’s the same answer as to the question of whether you honoured your vows.”

“Hardly.” His fingers closed around her wrist.

“Go to sleep, Erik,” she said, taut and furious, and her face dissolved into the night.

 

**END**


End file.
